K'Mrent
The K'Mrent are short, empathic species native to Siveril in Sector 4. They have recently reached out to the UPA for assistance in progressing into a FTL-capable species. Of particular note is their organic technology revolving around something they called Elemental Nanites. Due to the events of the Nexus War, they have created the Unity Mandate and have claimed the faction name, K'Mrent Cooperative. Physical (pictures go here) Most K'Mrent are about 1.375 meters (4' "6) in height with an average weight of about 36.2 kilograms (80 lbs.). They appear to have a blend of fur and hard plates along the nose ridge, neck, and chest. They range from slender to bottom heavy. Interestingly, the only real apparent sexual dimorphism of the species is that males have a pair of fleshy 'antennae', females have a fleshy appendage not unlike the 'angler' of an Sol Terran Angler Fish. Most appear to have muted colors that seem to be endless chromatic shades. They have bright, Bioluminescent spots normally (though other patterns are possible). They possess a limited pupil dilation range as they are a primarily cave dwelling species, their eyes only designed to adjust to the already low light of their home planet. Empathic and Telepathic Abilities All K'Mrent have a population-wide empathic ability and a latent telepathic ability. These abilities require the use of an organic medium to function. This can be ground, direct contact, Leigun crystals, or more recently, UPA's Living Steel. Empathy As a general rule, K'Mrent have a passive, always-active ability to sense emotions late in the egg-stage of their reproductive cycle. This ability, depending the the quality and contiguity of the medium, can potentially be planet-wide, though accuracy tends to suffer greatly at long ranges. K'Mrent will often remember each other by the cues and patterns their fellow K'Mrent's emotions give out. As such, K'Mrent are born into the sea of emotions of their race. The lack of this sea of emotions can drive a K'Mrent to become deeply paranoid, terrified, and often can lead to isolation insanity. This is the sole reason the K'Mrent have never made it off of their homeworld until now, despite clearly having the tech level to do so. They simply cannot handle the isolation. Thanks to UPA's Sentient Steel, all K'Mrent ships have comm relays that essentially extend their empathic abilities throughout a ship and project it back to Siveril. Pain and Death As one can imagine, pain and death are something K'Mrent will feel. Heavily. It makes it extremely difficult for a neruotypical K'Mrent to inflict pain or kill something sentient, though do hesitate with non-sentients, they have feelings too! K'Mrent forced to kill others are often left in an extremely traumatic mental state, often driven to suicide. The death of a K'Mrent is felt by the race as a whole, though the mourning is usually limited to local communities. Unfortunately, like other races, sociopathic K'Mrent do exist, lacking the care to actually be effected by the powerful emotions of pain and death. However, Post-Nexus war the K'Mrent have developed training and implants to withstand the shared trauma of death and pain in an effort to make colonists far more suited to the roughness of space and colony life. Telepathy The less understood facet of the K'Mrent is the latent Telepathic abilities. From a young age, K'Mrent are taught to 'filter out' the mental noise of others in order to skim surface thoughts. However, this ability takes exceptional amount of effort and is generally very close to touch range. This, along with their empathy have made it nearly impossible to translate their language. As the K'Mrent matures, they can filter background mental noise out faster and more efficiently, though rarely, some are capable of incredible feats of telepathy. K'Mrent Interactions To each other, K'Mrent thoughts are fully open. K'Mrent that meet in person will mingle in each other's thoughts. As of very interesting note, the more K'Mrent interact with each other, the more their 'mental noise' starts to match. The more similar the mental noise is, the quicker and less effort it takes for the K'Mrents to dive into each other's thoughts, eventually leading to effortless dives into their deepest recesses of the mind. It has been observed that particularly close K'Mrent almost behave as if their minds have melded together, a result of near-effortless and constant mental connection to each other. The K'Mrent refer to this as (poor translation) as being 'Soulbound'. It is not uncommon to see a group of 3-5 showing signs of being 'Soulbound'. It has given them a reputation of being a semi-hivemind. Rapid Knowledge Due to the lack of personal space within their own minds, information spreads like wildfire. News, scientific breakthroughs, languages, experiences, and even gossip can rapidly spread among the population within the matter of hours to weeks, depending on the importance of it. It has somewhat hindered their desire to make information superhighways, though they did eventually create their own computer networks. Non-K'Mrent Interactions The first few interactions outside of the K'Mrent caused them to rapidly learn common as they spread the knowledge of a few among themselves. After the first few encounters with non-empathic species, they have adopted a nearly race-wide policy of 'Ask before touch', as in, they will ask to enter a non-K'Mrent's thoughts first. Though, it's often a sign of trust to allow K'Mrent to poke around in a mind. Society K'Mrent are exceptionally social creatures, often living in extremely close quarters in tight-knit communities. While their ethos hasn't changed, the events of the Nexus War has dramatically had an effect on their government. Ethos The ethos of the K'Mrent is classified as Fanatically Peaceful Collectivists. They are an incredibly friendly species, almost to a fault. They wish to bring peace to those they co-exist with, with annoying persistance. The species as a whole puts the race before the individual. It is not uncommon for a K'Mrent to refer to themselves as 'we'. Government Pre-Nexus War, K'Mrent were a hybrid free/representative democracy with 'Oracles' serving over districts answering to 'High Oracles', K'Mrent holding large powers and led the species. All positions of power are decided by the population as a whole. However, after the Nexus War, everything has changed. The war has brought the race together to such a high cohesion they have reverted to deeply held traditions and have enacted the Unity Mandate. They are now what others would call an 'Enlightened Monarachy'. A singular High Oracle to lead the species into the stars, directing the species as his/her will demands. They resemble a loose hivemind more now than ever in their recorded history. Unity Mandate The Unity Mandate is the name of the manifest of the K'Mrent Cooperative, the name the K'Mrent have given their now space faring society. It details the unification of their race, and the imperative for the K'Mrent to spread their message of peace and unity in a monumental effort to unite the galaxy as a whole against all who threaten peace. The UPA has questioned the morality and ethical implications of the mandate. Their main area of concern is that the Unity Mandate codifies and regulates state-sponsored slavery. So far, it is limited to their own species. The Unity Mandate has a set of mandatory and voluntary subjugations that can be invoked by lower Oracles or the High Oracle him/herself. The most worrying part of the situation for the UPA is that the K'Mrent, as a grand majority, are completely fine with and being slaves. This boils down to their ethos, of which 'for the greater good' stands true above all else. Most K'Mrent slaves surveyed appear to be perfectly content, docile, and loyal about the situation. It also appears that the language around this subjugation often revolves around Servants, Pets, Subjects, and less often Mandates. The word slave is almost never mentioned. Some comfort is given in the fact that regardless of the ethics of the Unity Mandate, part of the mandate is the enslavement is heavily regulated. All servants, regardless of position, are guaranteed healthy living conditions, plentiful food/water, a high level of medical care, and fair working conditions. Often, conditions between non-enslaved and enslaved K'Mrent populations are comparable. All servant trade is traceable and closely monitored to ensure that outside slavers cannot exploit servants. All of the servant's information is stored within the standard Mandate Collar they are fitted with upon subjugation. Every effort is taken to ensure the safety of servants, it is enviable the sheer amount of passion the K'Mrent pursue in this endeavor. OOC The K'Mrent is a free, Etoile-Only mod to the Orange Nova Snaggletooth Kobold. Contact Zanibar Reyener (nagachief.darkstone) for the mod! __FORCETOC__ Examples (currently being transferred) Category:Species Category:Reptilian sentient species Category:Mammalian sentient species